


Family Values

by izumi2



Series: List of Questions (Civil War Team Iron Man) [20]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Civil War Team Iron Man, Comic Book Science, Not Steve Friendly, We don't actually KNOW Howard Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 14:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17941751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izumi2/pseuds/izumi2
Summary: Siberia was one of Tony's most horrific days, but also the most freeing.~*~Civil War Team Iron ManModerated because trolls turn a blind eye to tags





	Family Values

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this when I should be working on my paper, it's due two weeks from now but it's HUGE.
> 
> That said, I wrote like 90% of this while sitting on a Starbucks since the idea came to me out of nowhere and since I was already on my laptop, so... it's kinda crappy and I didn't really re-read it because the wi-fi was already faltering. I just wrote it and posted it. So I FEEL like the plot is a mess. Idk for sure because: didn't re-read it.
> 
> Hope you guys like it anyways ^///^

**_ What does Steve Rogers have in common with Tony Stark? _ **

“I know that road.”

_“Please… my wife, help my wife… Sargent Barnes?”_

“It wasn’t him!”

“Did you know?”

“I didn’t know it was him.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Rogers, did you **_know_**?”

“… yes.”

…

“This won’t change what happened.”

And in that moment, everything became clear, like a fog lifting. Like his mind was his own and Tony never felt so light and so enraged at the same time.

Only three people in the world were able to invoke the reckless kind of anger out of Tony, everything and everyone else…

It was different from the other times his temper got the best of him. His temper ran cold, he salted the earth until his enemies **_wished_** they were dead. He didn’t throw punches.

Killing people was easy, painfully so. Humans were fragile. Poison, fire, water, even air kills them, Tony was deeply aware of how fragile humans are after his decades long stint as a weapons manufacturer.

But why kill people when Tony can destroy them?

That was the part of him that he wasn’t proud of, the ruthlessness bred into him to make it in the business world, the reason why he never really disputed the name the Marchant of Death. The reason he never considered himself a hero.

Although useful in the business world, it wasn’t exactly a quality – if one could call it that – that makes into Saturday cartoons for little kids to cheer and buy the figure action.

He thought nothing about his parents could anger him anymore. If they were alive, the list of people capable of rising the reckless anger would be at five, but they weren’t and after years enduring all sorts of rumors about his father’s liking for hard liquor and how that killed him and his wife and his mom’s gold digger habits, Tony thought he was immune.

His mind and his heart were well protected, well shielded. Perhaps his mind way too protected.

Tony always felt like he was seeing things from a third point of view. Not his own and not other people’s.

And Rogers’ words…

**_“This won’t change what happened.”_ **

It truly wouldn’t.

Tony still spent decades hating his father for something that he never did, for being the victim. He still spent all these years blaming his dad and himself in turns or at the same time for Maria, his beautiful mother, being dead.

His mind is what makes him valuable. Genius is something that a blow to the head could take away from him. But Howard was the one to push Tony into skipping years, into getting so many degrees, one after the other, sometimes at the same time, when Tony was perfectly happy with his couple of masters and his PhD in physics, Howard was the one that left SI to Tony and Tony had the venues to make his plans into reality.

Tony always thought that Howard wanted an heir and that’s what made him such a subpar father. He wanted someone to pass the reigns to, not some kid to cuddle.

But then, Tony has eidetic memory, he could faintly recall, when he was very young and small enough to be tossed into the air, Howard carrying him in his shoulders through SI’s halls.

He always thought that the memory was fake, a trick from his mind that watched too many fabric softeners commercials.

**_“This won’t change what happened.”_ **

His dad was still an emotionally constipated asshole.

He was still the man that slapped six year old Tony’s remote controlled car, breaking it and yelling that Tony was occupying himself with such useless toy and wasn’t even man enough to face him afterwards, instead, his little heart was comforted by Edwin Jarvis, the human version, and the butler tried to defend his employer and sooth his small child at the same time and ultimately succeeding at neither.

He was still the man that fought with his son so often and made such a poor impression, that Tony believed, truly believed it when the reports came with the conclusion that his parents’ deaths was the result of reckless driving.

But… wasn’t that the exact same mentality that the Avengers treated him with Ultron? That there was something fundamentally wrong with Tony, so of course when he built Ultron and things went wrong, it was his fault.

**_“This won’t change what happened.”_ **

His beautiful, elegant, smart, kind and loving mom would still be dead. But that video, cruel and cold made Tony love his imperfect father again.

“I don’t care… he killed my parents.”

If any of the fighters were paying attention, if their ears weren’t rigging with the adrenaline pumping as they threw punches, kicks and blood was spilled, they would have heard a boom. It sounded eerily like a sonic boom.

When something or someone surpassed the speed of sound.

Rogers was panting and Barnes was already on the ground and Tony? His head was pounding, a headache that was splitting his skull open, his lip was tore open, his arm was still very much broken, and his eye was still black.

“I could do this all day.”

And Tony didn’t know what possessed him, what made him do it. A few weeks later, he would be bemoaning and complaining to anyone that would hear about the scientific impossibility of what happened, but in that second, he lifted his arm, his palm wide open towards the sky there was a crash somewhere in the distance and a comforting weight on his hand. Not too heavy, not too light.

His whole body drummed in energy, like the first time he drank pure coffee on an empty stomach, like when he kissed a girl for the first time or when… well… before showing Hammer up became so common that Tony did it mostly out of boredom than anything else, but times a thousand.

Tony didn’t know how else to describe it but he **_felt_** the armor repairing itself, the cut in his lip closing and his eye healing. The snap as the bones in his arm mended was unpleasant but not painful and he no longer felt like a forty six year old man. He felt like back in college, when he was a teenager with too much energy and intelligence and too little sense, showing all of it clearly as he stayed awake for three nights in a role and finished papers and presentations and thesis before the other students even managed to find a good book to study from.

He took in a deep breath and opened his eyes, not knowing when he closed them.

Steve’s hands were still in fists but his stubbornness melted into shock, his pale face got even paler, almost ashen.

Tony knew, he rationally knew, what he would find in his hand, but he still had to look, bending his elbow, he looked down.

There, in all its glory, was Mjolnir.

“Well… who am I to complain?” his voice sounded weird, that tilt in accent that Thor and Loki have.

He raised his arm and multiple thunders almost deafened all three.

By the time T’Challa went looking through the bunker, Tony was long gone, the two unconscious and bruised Super Soldiers over his left shoulder and his right arm twirled Mjolnir like he saw Thor doing so many times.

His thrusters were damaged and Tony wasn't sure about the repairs done with an Asgardian hammer, but the same couldn’t be said about Mjolnir.

For one second, he considered going to U.S. but discarded the idea. Rogers didn’t even do anything in America and there was the land where Captain America did no wrong.

Instead, he went straight to the American Embassy in Berlin. Still a place where Rogers wouldn’t be prosecuted for technically being on American soil but giving voice to those he hurt.

The reactions he got was a hint but Tony truly boggled at the first mirror he saw.

The wrinkles are gone, there wasn’t a thread of white on his hair that was a little too long and therefore a little wavy and… was he taller?

“Uh… the Norse Gods’ version of Super Soldier Serum, then.”

But he **_was_** a little miffed at the makeover his armor got. He wasn’t wearing a cape, but the strange little… metal circles? That Thor’s armor had now were attached to the Iron Man’s armor. The Arc Reactor’s light was never this blinding, lightening cracked through the lines of the armor as if it was containing lightening and not a… human-y being.

It was going to hit him hard later but for now, he had other fish to fry before this thing wore off.

After securing the two bulls in a china shop, Tony pushed Mjolnir to the limits towards Leipzig where Rhodey was waking up from surgery. Already having rehearsed his arguments in his head.

“Long story short: Mjolnir thinks I’m worthy, I’ll tell you later what happened even if I’m not a hundred percent sure why Mjolnir changed… **_her_** …? It feels like a her, anyway, why Mjolnir changed her mind and decided that I’m worthy but when I saw the files, Erik’s papers about the Extraction Theory wasn’t the only thing I studied, Thor is the god of thunder, storm, strength, oak trees for reason, but also god of fertility. I know that’s kinda of stretch and we will consult on as many physicians as we can possibly contact, but I was thinking: what if I can now manipulate stem cells? Regenerate your spine’s nerves and… help you walk again.”

Tony finally stopped to breath again and carefully took in Rhodey’s expression.

It was still a little loopy from anesthesia and Rhodey looked like he wasn’t sure whether he was hallucinating Tony cladded in some modified version of Asgardian armor with the Iron Man armor, holding Mjolnir up like they were back in their college dorm and Tony was offering him a cup of coffee. Actually Tony was more closely resembling those little kids that were so proud of the scrawls they drew and gave it to their parents, insisting that it was a flower, a house, their family, dogs or aliens.

“Did you get Botox?” was the inane question that escaped his mouth.

Granted, what Rhodey **_wanted_** to ask wasn’t much better, but he still would rather that, “How long was I out? Your hair is curly again.” came out of his mouth than the Botox thingy.

And yeah, the incredulous look Tony sent him was a little hypocritical of his friend because he just sprang Renaissance Faire on Rhodey’s face, but he still had to give it to Tony since Rhodey asked him about Botox of all things after the tirade the inventor just gave.

~*~

A few weeks later, Stephen Strange of all people hesitantly cleared the procedure – Rhodey vaguely remembered the former surgeon in the way he remembers most of Tony’s colleagues: annoying. But Rhodey was conscious enough to know that if he didn’t know Tony as well as he did, Rhodey would find him just as annoying instead of endearing.

So here Rhodey was, laying on Helen’s Cradle about to receive a bolt of lightening to the face. Ok, not to the **_face_** but that’s what it felt like as Tony raised Mjolnir and called forth what had to be a thunderstorm from where Rhodey was laying on his back. _Fuck_.

Good news: it worked.

Bad news: they didn’t know if and when Thor got his hammer back, it would destroy Tony’s work in Rhodey’s legs.

They learned that Tony could regenerate new cells, his theory about stem cells not straying too far from the fertility side of Thor’s myth much to Stephen’s bemusement. The former surgeon would be a hypocrite if he said a word about the whole thing, but even Rhodey in his very limited knowledge about bio-sciences knew that Tony was grasping at straws with the connection between fertility and stem cells to regenerate nerves. So the fact that it worked could be explained in a simple word that Tony had yet to utter, magic.

“I… just let me be in peace.” Tony’s bottom lip trembled in mock distress but Rhodey could see the same bafflement in his eyes. Just like he could see the wistful look on Strange’s.

Credit where credit is due, Strange didn’t ask, didn’t even look like he seriously considered it.

As Tony was busy testing his new physiology, the Rogues were charged.

And that’s when Tony could no longer ignore the unrest.

Especially once the videos Zemo recorded were online.

How he lured all three – Barnes, Rogers and Stark – to Siberia, how he masterfully played every Avenger.

How Rogers and Barnes teamed up against Tony and how, when reaching a stalemate, both bleeding and panting, Mjolnir descended and landed on Tony’s waiting hand.

Some speculated that Tony was always able to do that, the waiting hand didn’t exactly help.

Some called foul because how someone like Tony was “worthy”?

And that last question is what threw the world off.

How was Tony worthy?

Because the internet doesn’t forgive or forget and Stark Tower is basically one huge piece of tech, the world knew that aside from Thor, none of the other Avengers were able to lift the hammer – actually, the redhead that gave the Congress the finger didn’t even bother to try – so what gives?

Then they put the two instances side by side: Tony being unable to lift the hammer… and then suddenly being able to.

Steve never being able to lift the hammer. But people expected that if any Avenger could, it would be him.

Siberia was the answer.

“Good theory as any.” Tony commented blandly as he saw the interview some… Norse… historian…? Was giving.

“That Steve knew about your parents and didn’t say a word for two years is what made him incapable of lifting Mjolnir I can swallow, but this guy is clearly talking out of his ass about how you were “fighting for justice” and whatever. I love you, Tony, but you were just mad as hell there.”

“I agree…”

“You trailed off.” Rhodey turned around in his seat, still marveling at the fact that he could without any aids whatsoever.

“In that bunker, Steve said that going after his boyfriend wouldn’t change what happened.”

“Wow, that’s… this guy should get an award… the Oscar for Pep Talking. Here we have, Steve Rogers, and his work with Wanda Maximoff and “Deaths are numbers on a chart” and Tony Stark, “I only care about my buddy.” Honestly, this guy.” The colonel rolled his eyes.

Tony gave a brief chuckle but sobered up again, “It’s just… when he said that, it made me realize that technically he was right. It wouldn’t change all those years that Howard was a crappy dad and all the years I spent hating him for… no reason, after he died. But… in that moment, for the first time since that night, I wasn’t hating anyone. Not myself, not my dad, not even Barnes. I was furious and out of control but… no hatred for the first time in decades.”

Rhodey leaned forward, his eyebrows scrunched up in thought, “Thor said that he was able to lift Mjolnir once he could see his priorities clearly again.”

The billionaire sighed, “My therapist is going to be insufferable.”

“Let me guess, he also told you that resentment is like poison to the soul?”

“Got it in one.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on that headcanon (I think it was tumblr… or Instagram…?) that speculated if Steve was unable to lift Mjolnir because he was hiding the fact that he knew the Starks were murdered.
> 
> What if the reason Tony couldn’t lift it either was also because of Maria and Howard?  
> Now, I won’t pretend for a second that Tony is perfect (I’m not those Cap stans that think their hero vomits miracles), Tony has plenty of flaws, let’s ignore the comics for now (the alcohol addiction and the VEEEEERY grey morals, specially shown during the Comics!Civil War), in MCU:
> 
> Tony is reckless, he lets emotion get in the way way too often, he is casually rude (1), he has a sixth sense of where people’s button are and blows and low blows are the same to his “anything that works” school, he is a nosy person and gets involved when NO ONE asked him to and he wasn’t involved in any way, shape or form (2) and he micromanages.
> 
> (1) (WE think it’s funny, but I’d bet anything that we wouldn’t think so if we are on the receiving end, sorta like Deadpool, unless we are in that emotional state that we are yelling and almost seeing red and then out nowhere the other person says something so ridiculous that we are laughing)  
> (2) (Wanda… seriously, Tony, just let her sink, what exactly did you have to gain by trying to shelter her? A pile of cars on your head, that’s what… ditto with Bucharest).
> 
> Anyways, so I started thinking about the fanon ideas floating around about the possible cover stories for the Starks’ assassinations because let’s face it, there are literally no other options:
> 
> 1) Reckless driving;  
> 2) Howard was drunk;  
> 3) Some mechanical issue with the car;
> 
> I automatically rule out #3 because… it’s Tony… That’s actually how they died in the comics and Tony bought the car’s company and fixed the “mistake” that got them killed and while that can happen in MCU no one says a thing about it ever (although I know that’s not saying much since they expect the audience to fill in the blanks but when we do, they “correct” us with interviews that counters what we literally just saw) and young or not, Tony has been building engines since he was SEVEN, so no.
> 
> Either 1 or 2 would make Tony blame his father (sad reality: we always blame the driver, there was once that stupid seven/eight year old me forced my mom to look at a magazine while she was driving… as in, I was in the back because I wasn’t old enough to go shotgun and put the open magazine in front of my mom, completely blocking her view, it was sheer dumb luck that nothing happened but she was rightly and royally pissed at me especially because it wasn’t enough for me to block her view, I also unfastened my seatbelt so I could pull off my little stunt… god, when I think about that NOW I just want to cry really hard). 
> 
> We don’t see nearly as much as we should (i.e want) of Howard as a father to claim with any certainty that he was abusive, what we have is the somewhat biased view of 17-21 year old (*roll eyes at MCU*) Tony saying, “He was cold, calculating. He never said he loved me, he never even said he liked me. Happiest day of his life was when he shipped me off to boarding school” and the thing with the toy was in the comics tie-in (a-holish but not abusive). From that we can say with some more authority that Howard didn’t exactly raise Tony in a vert emotionally healthy way (“SOME” because this is still the word of a teenager-ish that was forever clashing with his emotionally distant father so not exactly the most reliable source either).
> 
> Maria? There is where we have literally ZERO to go on with but death and the fact that Howard apparently caused it basically cemented Tony’s ideal view of her. In Siberia, Tony didn’t say, “I don’t care, he killed my parents.” Instead he said, “I don’t care, he killed my mom.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that where Maria Stark stands even with Tony at least in his teen years, meaning that he no longer saw his parents as the immortal beings that are never wrong.
> 
> And THAT’S what was holding Tony back.
> 
> Based on Asgardian’s sense of “worthy”*, Tony is worthy once he stopped blaming his dad and his feelings matured but Steve still isn’t because he didn’t say anything to anyone, until the very end, Steve still wasn’t saying the words, “I knew, I’ve known for years and kept it to myself”, all he could manage was, “Yes.” (that Cap stans still argue about what he "knew").
> 
> *Mind you, like Kizmet, I don’t really take Asgardian (or Odin’s) sense of “worthy” very highly considering Thor’s general attitude in the ONE movie Mjolnir was used to actually measure the Avengers’ “worthiness”. But let’s all suspend our disbelief.
> 
> If Thor ever demanded/asked for his hammer back is irrelevant.


End file.
